Around home, as the snow began

Well, I’m almost caught up posting the photos that I have saved, this post should get me back to being current again. The reasons for that are the new job, and the weather, or I’d still be falling behind.

The new job is going well enough, the hours are long, so I don’t get out to shoot photos most days since I started, but the pay is good, and the weather nasty.

We set a record for the most snowfall ever in the month of November, with over a week left to go in the month. Along with the snow came record cold, but at least we didn’t get hammered as hard as Buffalo, New York.

On Saturday, the snow changed over to rain, and it has been raining most of the time up until now, which is Monday morning. In a month of records, we set the daily rainfall total for the date yesterday. Most of the snow is gone, for the time being, but it is a wet, muddy mess outside. By this afternoon, the rain is forecast to change back to snow again, so we’ll be adding to our record for the month as far as snowfall.

After I went for my long walk in the rain yesterday, I went to the local Apple store to look at computers. I know that an iMac is more expensive than a Windows machine, but I’m almost positive that I’ll be purchasing an iMac, if for no other reason than to get away from Microsoft. But, that won’t be until the end of January, or more likely, the first part of February, it will depend on how many hours I work.

I really liked the iMac that I played with at the store, and I also like that way that you can use an iPhone and an iPad seamlessly with an iMac. Of course the phone and tablet are way down the road, but it pays to think ahead. I had a smart phone for a while, and I miss having one.

I could go for a Macbook, but I’ll get more bang for my buck with a desktop iMac for right now. If I ever see the need for a notebook, a tablet will fill the bill nicely, while the desktop will be better for processing photos, with its larger display, larger hard drive, more RAM, and higher processor speed.

Once I have a current computer, rather than my ten-year old Gateway, I’ll shoot more photos in Raw, rather than JPEG. I also hate to admit this, but I’m going over to the “dark side”, and I’ll begin tweaking my images in Lightroom as well as Photomatix.

That doesn’t mean that I’ll go crazy in my editing, creating images that look nothing like what nature presented to me. However, I have come to the conclusion that no matter how well I learn to use my camera gear, the limitations of what a camera’s sensor can record require some editing to bring the images that the sensor produces up to the level of what I can see with my eyes as I shoot the images.

In fact, I doubt if I will do much, if any, editing to most of my bird and wildlife images, other than possibly noise reduction in images such as these.

Dark-eyed junco

Dark-eyed junco

Not to brag, but I think that I do well enough on birds and wildlife often enough that I don’t need to edit poor photos to come up with enough to fill my blog regularly.

I’m not sure that editing could save a photo like this anyway.

Male mallard in flight

That’s what I get for trying to shoot photos in the rain and gloom. However, I was quite proud of myself in one way, as I approached the spot where I had seen the mallards land, I got everything set on both my camera and the 300 mm lens in preparation for the mallards to take flight. But, despite setting the lens to the action mode for the IS, and setting the focus limiter for quicker auto-focus, when a mallard comes straight at me at speed, then turns abruptly as I’m pressing the shutter release….

Most of a male mallard in flight

…there are no camera settings that would have helped, and no amount of editing that would make that a good photo. 😉 I can’t even stitch the next photo in the series on to that one…

Male mallard’s head

…because I was moving the camera too quickly trying to catch up to the mallard.

Better light may have helped, not to make excuses again, but here’s a blurb from the local meteorologist whose blog I follow about our recent weather.

“Over the last three weeks, G.R. has had just 12.9% of possible sunshine.  Today (Tue.) is the 21st consecutive day with at least at trace of rain or snow and 17 of those days have had measurable rain or snow. Over the last 5 days, Grand Rapids has averaged 45 SECONDS of sunshine per day”

In other words, it’s been dark, wet, and gloomy all this month so far, and it doesn’t look as though it’s going to improve much any time soon.

Of the photos that I have saved for this post, three were shot in good light, and here they are.

Fox squirrel

Unidentified fungal object

Unidentified fungal object

Most of the time, it has been cloudy, so here’s the same mushroom after the snow began.

Unidentified fungal object

On the few days when I have been able to make it outside for a walk, the birds have been hunkered down against the cold and snow most of the time, but I did catch a few.

Black-capped chickadee

Male downy woodpecker

Male downy woodpecker

Male downy woodpecker

American goldfinch

American goldfinch

However, this weather has confirmed what I suppose that I already knew, that I have become too reliant on birds, or maybe a better way to put it is obsessed with birds.

When I began my blog, I shot far fewer birds, and more of the other things that nature has to offer. As I shot more species of birds, including some rare ones, my blog has become more of a bird blog than an all around nature blog. With winter here, birds are going to be few and far between, so I have been going back to shooting other things in nature.

There are always squirrels to photograph.

Relaxed fox squirrel

Guilty fox squirrel

Guilty fox squirrel

Hungry fox squirrel

They do make good subjects, because each one seems to have its own personality, but I really don’t want my blog to become the fox squirrel of the day blog.

There are fungi to shoot.

Unidentified fungal objects

Unidentified fungal objects

Unidentified fungal objects

But in low light, they are not easy to photograph. Besides, I can’t identify any of them, and probably never will be able to, despite the best efforts of Allen (New Hampshire Garden Solutions) to teach me about such things.

Speaking of low light, and this goes to editing images and noise as well, buying good lenses really pays dividends! I saw some mosses growing on a fence, and wanted to get a photo of them. But, in the very low light that day, even at ISO 3200, which is very high for my 60D body, I couldn’t get the photo that I wanted to shoot with the Tokina macro lens stopped down for more depth of field, there simply wasn’t enough light.

I have sung the praises of that lens before, but this next image surprised me, shot at f/2.8 and ISO 3200.

Mosses on a fence

I think that the image above is the first one that I have ever shot with the aperture of the Tokina lens wide open. Most lenses need to be stopped down a few stops before they render super sharp images, apparently, the Tokina is super sharp with the aperture wide open. Not only that, but just as with my two Canon L series lenses, great glass seems to produce less noise at higher ISO settings.

I wish that I had been able to get more depth of field, but we’ll say that I shot it that way on purpose, since that seems to be the trend these days as far as style. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that the current obsession with extremely short depths of field and the quality of the bokeh in an image is a bit amusing, especially since the word bokeh didn’t exist until recently.

One day, I was coming up short of subjects to photograph, so I tried turning a molehill into a mountain.

Molehill mountain

Obviously, that didn’t work as I planned. 😉 But, it’s fun playing with my lenses and trying to see how the world looks at different angles and perspectives. To go with that thought, I’m going to bore you with a few images of the same fungi that I shot over several days, trying both the 70-200 mm and the Tokina macro lens, and different aperture settings.

I’ll start with a wide view.

Turkey tails?

Then, I moved in and out, shooting various bits of the scene.

Turkey tails?

Turkey tails? 70-200 mm

Turkey tails? Tokina 100 mm

Nearby, I found this, which I think is an egg case from an insect.

Insect egg case?

I think that I see the larval stage of an insect there, and it looks like the birds have been digging into the case to pluck a few of the larva out, but I’m guessing.

I’ve been using the Tokina macro lens more than ever lately, here’s a few more from it.

Dried Pine resin teeth

Dried Pine resin teeth

???

Lichens

Lichens

Lichens

I’ve also been carrying the 70-200 mm lens most days, since it has been so gloomy.

Unidentified fungal object

Unidentified fungal objects

And, I’ve been trying more artistic shots as well.

Frozen in time

Light snow

Standing out from the crowd

Rose hips in the rain

Sumac with its “catch”

Blushes of color

Anyway, I’ve also played with Photomatix to produce a few more HDR images, here’s the scene that I’ve been shooting repeatedly as I learn to use the controls of Photomatix.

The last color, not HDR

I like the color, but the sky is blown out. So, here’s one attempt at a HDR.

The last color, HDR 1

I think that I got a little carried away with that one, but not as much as it looks. Here’s another try.

The last color, HDR 2, in the snow

One of these days, I’ll get the hang of using the Photomatix software.

To wrap this one up, a big surprise!

Garter snake in the snow

The snake was moving so slowly due to the cold, that I was able to shoot several photos as it tried to escape.

Garter snake in the snow

Now that I’m caught up with my photos, I’ll begin posting one species of bird to the My Photo Life List project again over the winter.

As cold as I think that this winter will be, I doubt if I’ll be chasing birds very often, as they will have all that they can do to survive. So I guess that you’ll have to look forward to subjects other than birds for the next few months. Of course I have no idea what those subjects will be, or if my photos will be any good or not, but, it will be fun trying new things for a while.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

November 27, 2014 | Categories: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Photography | Tags: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photos | 30 Comments

Around home, before the snow began

Where do I begin?

My new job is going well enough, although being the newbie, I’m getting stuck working odd hours and doing runs that the company’s senior drivers don’t want to do. Well, that comes with being a newbie, it will get better the longer I work there. So far, I do really like working there as far as the way the company is run, so I think that I will be there until I retire. I’ll spare you the details, but this company doesn’t fool around, they aren’t afraid of pulling a truck out of a shipper’s facility if the shipper doesn’t start loading a truck in a timely way. Neither do they ask a driver to attempt to speed up a dawdling shipper, they have a person on staff to do that.

Anyway, I’m sipping my “morning” coffee at 4 PM today, I start at 10 PM tonight. I can’t say that I like these hours, but I do know that it will get better as I work there longer, and get a chance to bid on a dedicated run, so I’ll have a more reasonable work schedule.

My work schedule has prevented me from doing a daily walk on most days so far, not that the weather has been conducive for photography. We’re in the middle of a lake effect snowstorm that began yesterday, and continues today. At last check, the terminal where I start from had gotten 15 inches of snow so far. I live 12 mile east of the terminal, and we’ve had a little over a foot of snow, and it’s still coming down. The snow is forecast to let up overnight, then begin all over again tomorrow. Yuck!

Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, we’re setting records for snow and cold for the month of November.

I must be getting old, the idea of trudging through a foot of snow on gloomy days when we never see the sun, and it feels like mid-January rather than November, doesn’t appeal to me as much as it used to.

So, with nasty weather, and working long hours, I don’t know how much photography I’ll be doing this winter. That’s okay, it’s part of my plan. I haven’t received my first paycheck from my new employer, but I estimate that it will be close to double what I averaged at my last job, and that’s always a good thing. So far this week, I’m on pace for the same size paycheck again.

With some real money coming in again, I’ll pay off the few bills that I have quickly, buy a new computer, and still be able to purchase a new Canon 7D camera next spring.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with the two 60 D bodies that I have now, not at all, but the new 7D has even better noise reduction, and of course, a much better auto-focusing system. I wonder if the improved auto-focusing will “cure” the problems that I have using my two Canon L series lenses.

Both the 70-200 mm and 300 mm prime L series lenses that I own work much better on one of my 60 D bodies than they do on the other one. I’ve written about that before, so I won’t repeat myself too much here.

And, all of the lenses that I have purchased came with strengths and weaknesses, it’s been both fun and a little frustrating at times learning what those strengths and weaknesses are, and learning when to use each lens to play to its strengths.

A few examples, the Sigma 150-500 mm lens is at its best at mid-range distances. The 300 mm prime lens is great both close up and at longer distances, but a bit soft at mid-ranges. The 70-200 mm lens doesn’t do well close up, but seems to get sharper and sharper the farther that I am from something. I have to wonder if those things will still hold true when I use those lenses on a better camera body.

Okay, speaking of the 70-200 mm lens, it has been my forgotten lens, that I seldom used this summer. That was a mistake!

Fall mallards

That photo was one in a series of reflection shots that I took, here’s two more.

Fall reflections

Fall mallards 2

In a way, I wish that the mallards hadn’t been there. I was angling for a shot of the branch in the water “sprouting” from the reflections of the trees, but the mallards wouldn’t leave, so I just had to include them. 😉

Not to brag (too much) but all my lenses are capable of delivering super images under the right conditions, my problem is that I shoot photos no matter what the conditions are outside. 😉

Yellow

Seeing a grasshopper on a dandelion so late in the year led to this, shot with the Tokina macro lens.

Grasshopper and dandelion

I decided to pull back, and capture more of the scene.

Grasshopper and dandelion

It was then that I noticed the blades of grass in the foreground which are distracting from the subjects. But, when I tried to remove the grass, the grasshopper spooked, so I was left with this.

Dandelion

The truth is, I don’t remember which lens I used for this next one.

Fall still life

But, that’s sort of the point that I was trying to make, that all my lenses are quite capable of producing great images as far the technical side of photography, now, it is up to me to learn the artistic side better.

I suppose that I could stop trying to shoot great photos on days when the weather and/or lighting isn’t good for photos. However, that’s just not my style, and I would miss recording some of the things that I see in nature. For example, on one misty morning, I found a flock of crows that for some reason, held still for a few photos, one of which I will post.

American crow

The reason that the crows were willing to tolerate my being so close is because they were busy mobbing a Cooper’s hawk.

Cooper’s hawk in flight

Here’s another example. I’ve posted photos of both robins and cedar waxwings eating berries before, even catching shots of the birds swallowing the berries whole. Well, one day I found a flock of robins feeding on berries….

American robins

…so even though the weather was less than ideal, and I was too far away from the robins, I thought that I wold try again…

American robins

…and again…

American robins eating berries

…got one of the berry going down, or did I?

American robins eating berries

Did that robin spit the berry skin out? I’ll have to try to see if I can catch that!

American robin chewing a berry

American robin chewing a berry

American robin spitting out a berry skin

Sure enough, with this species of berry, the robins didn’t swallow them whole, but extracted the insides of the berries and spit out the skins.

That brings up a couple of points, one, if I’m good at anything related to photography, it is catching wildlife, particularly birds, in action. I seem to be able to capture shots that I seldom see anywhere else. That’s because most wildlife photographers shoot from blinds, whereas I track down the wildlife doing things that they naturally do. But, that also means that I’m often shooting in bad light, and/or bad weather.

Another point is that I would love to be able to carry all my lenses all the time. The robins were shot with the 70-200 mm lens, and were really out of range for that lens, I would have loved to have had the Beast (Sigma 150-500 mm lens) with me for those photos. Then, I could have zoomed in closer for even better images of the way that the robins were eating the berries. However, I never know what I’ll see on any given day, and carrying twenty pounds of camera gear three miles every day doesn’t sound like fun. I guess that I’m a wimp on that point.

Here’s another of those times that I wished that I had been carrying one of my longer lenses, these were also shot with the 70-200 mm lens.

Whitetail doe

I thought that I would end up deleting that photo, but as I was watching her, I spotted a buck nearby.

8 point whitetail buck

8 point whitetail buck

Here’s the two of them together, although they are hard to see, their coloration blends in so well with the colors of the vegetation.

8 point whitetail buck and doe

The buck was watching the doe, I was hoping to shoot some deer porn, but no such luck.

8 point whitetail buck

Once again, I had the wrong lenses with me.

Since the weather cooled off from summer, and before the snow began, I was carrying both camera bodies and four lenses with me. One longer lens, the two wide-angle lenses I own, and the Tokina macro lens. Here’s a photo that I shot as a throw away using the 10-18 mm lens, but I kind of like it, so I’ll go ahead and post it.

Fall woods

Oh, that reminds me, in a past post, I had a HDR image that I shot at the same time as the mallards that I started this post with, and I’ll post it again to refresh people’s memories.

Fall Mallards in HDR

On Sundays, I often listen to Leo Laporte, who does the Tech Guy radio show. One of his recurring guests is Chris Marquardt, an expert on digital photography who passes on tips, and also posts “assignments” or challenges for listeners to try their hand at. I posted the last photo for the current assignment, Fall, and it is holding its own as far as views and being picked as a favorite against some pretty stiff competition. I’m quite proud of that photo, so even if it isn’t picked as one of the top three that gets discussed next week, I think that I did well. Now, I need to do that more often!

Anyway, back to my other photos. I spent a day at Roselle Park, intending to do some birding, but the birds didn’t cooperate. I shot two photos of birds, a hawk and a heron, neither of them worth posting here. I did shoot a few landscapes though.

Roselle Park 1

Roselle Park 2

Roselle Park 3

Roselle Park 4

Down the trail

Teasel and goldenrod

I used the Beast for all of those, and a shorter lens would have been better, maybe. Those were shot back when we saw some sunshine, this past week, we’ve had less than 4% sun, and just over 10% for the past two weeks.

News flash, I’m leaving at midnight tonight for Iowa, an overnight run for work. They’ll put me up in a motel over Thursday, and I’ll get back on Friday. I’ll get to leave the snow behind for a few hours, and even get to see the sun again!

However, neither my body or brain are used to switching work times like that, I’ve been on a set work schedule for five years. So, please don’t be surprised if some of the comments that I’ve left to your blogs don’t make a lot of sense. Also, don’t be surprised or disappointed if I don’t respond to comments that you leave to this post right away. I may not get to them until Saturday, possibly Sunday, it depends on my work schedule for the rest of the week.

As I said at the beginning of this, being the newbie, I’m going to be used to fill the holes in their scheduling between the dedicated runs that the more senior drivers have.

It is mentally and physically draining to work the long hours on different schedules that I’m doing right now, but I’ll get used to it again, and the money will be worth it. This winter is shaping up to be just as harsh as last winter, so I may as well work as many hours as I can, while I can.

Okay, back to the photos. Here’s one saved from some time ago, to remember when it was warm and sunny outside.

Monarch butterfly

And, the few that I have left from Roselle Park.

Artsy caterpillar

Artsy seeds in the wind

Woolly bear caterpillar

I’m going to post a small version of the next one, a dust storm in the parking lot. The dust doesn’t show up well the larger that the image is for some reason.

Dust storm

I used the Beast for this next one, only because the log was out in the river, and I couldn’t get close enough with any other lens.

???

It was a very slow day at Roselle Park, I was quite disappointed that I didn’t catch any migrating birds, but that happens sometimes.

To finish this post off, I’ll go back to photos shot from my daily walks. I haven’t put any squirrel photos in this one yet, so here’s two for the squirrel fans.

Fox squirrel eating lunch

I saw pine sap that had flowed from a tree, and tried to get artsy with it using the Tokina lens, but I didn’t like the artsy version, here’s the one that I shot with the 300 mm prime lens.

Pine sap

Do you see the dark spot in the sap that looks like it is about to drip? Here’s a closer view, shot with the Tokina.

Future fossil

I moved in as close as I could hand holding the Tokina, and I also cropped this one slightly.

Future fossil

By the way, the reason that I didn’t like the artsy shot of the sap taken with the Tokina lens was that it didn’t fit well with the more “scientific” type of images of the ant trapped in the pine sap. I should have saved it and slipped it into another post later on. I also meant to go back and do better as far as the ant, but that’s about the time that the weather went downhill.

It will still be there if there’s ever a good day for photography again. Call it morbid curiosity, but the ant trapped in the pine sap now may very well end up as an insect trapped in amber thousands of years from now. I find it interesting that what I see now may be discovered as a fossil by a future generation.

Okay then, that’s all the photos for this post. I still have photos from one more trip to the Muskegon area to use up, plus one more post from around home, then, I’ll be all caught up again. The images from Muskegon were shot on a crappy day, rain, snow, and wind made photography difficult. But, as it always seems to go, I caught a few interesting things, such as an eagle carrying a mallard that it had killed around, and a gull chasing a peregrine falcon. Low light and miserable weather meant that I had to shoot at very high ISO settings, and my 60 D camera loses quite a bit of resolution at the settings required that day.

That’s one of the reasons that I’m saving for the new 7D Mark II, it has superior noise reduction at high ISO settings, and much better resolution as a result. A better auto-focusing system would have helped as well.

I’ve begun looking at new computers, I’m considering switching from a Windows machine to a Mac when I make the purchase, so if any of you have any pointers for me, I’d appreciate hearing them.

Well, that’s about all I have to say for this one. I’ve prattled on more than long enough.

That’s it for this one, thanks for stopping by!

November 19, 2014 | Categories: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Photography | Tags: Birds, Hiking, Nature, Nature photography, Photography, Photos | 22 Comments